COVID19 Update - Day 142

US Tests: 54,644,715*

US Cases: 4,464,823*

US Deaths: 144,139*

Worldwide Cases: 17,237,642*

Worldwide Deaths: 671,909*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

I haven't spent a lot of time bashing Jared Kushner.  This is surprising, because although the man doesn't seem to be competent at anything, Trump puts him in charge of everything.  Usually with disastrous results.

However, according to a new report by Vanity Fair, Kushner was on the verge of doing something right earlier this year.  Trump put him in charge of developing a national testing effort, and according to Vanity Fair, it would have been at least a competent plan --- and certainly better than the no-plan-at-all Trump ending up pursing --- but it was abandoned for completely stupid reasons:

The plan called for the federal government to coordinate distribution of test kits, so they could be surged to heavily affected areas, and oversee a national contact-tracing infrastructure. It also proposed lifting contract restrictions on where doctors and hospitals send tests, allowing any laboratory with capacity to test any sample. It proposed a massive scale-up of antibody testing to facilitate a return to work. It called for mandating that all COVID-19 test results from any kind of testing, taken anywhere, be reported to a national repository as well as to state and local health departments.

And it proposed establishing “a national Sentinel Surveillance System” with “real-time intelligence capabilities to understand leading indicators where hot spots are arising and where the risks are high vs. where people can get back to work.”

By early April, some who worked on the plan were given the strong impression that it would soon be shared with President Trump and announced by the White House. The plan, though imperfect, was a starting point. Simply working together as a nation on it “would have put us in a fundamentally different place,” said the participant.

. . .

[Fear of bad publicity and the hope that the virus would just fade away meant] the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

Hey, Trump supporters who happen to live in blue states!  Trump decided that his re-election was more important than your life!  Still feel like voting for him?

It is always, always, always, always, ALWAYS about him, and only him. 

 

 

COVID19 Update - Day 141

US Tests: 52,985,577*

US Cases: 4,328,695*

US Deaths: 141,430*

Worldwide Cases: 16,662,462*

Worldwide Deaths: 658,861*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

For some strange reason, the numbers from The COVID Tracking Project aren't getting updated again.  So while I wait for the numbers to actually catch up to being depressed ONLY by the Trump administration, let's talk about what we COULD do to protect 'essential' workers if only we were so inclined:

Bus drivers, flight attendants, Transportation Security Administration officers and other transportation workers have found themselves on the front line of the pandemic, continuing to go to work and risking exposure to the virus. Willis wrote in his letter that every union he represents has had members fall ill and die.

In the absence of a single set of rules from the federal government, airlines and airports have been setting their own standards for passengers and employees. In recent weeks, though, airlines have been toughening up their rules on masks and banning passengers who don’t comply.

Major transit agencies, too, require face coverings. In the Washington area, Metro officials told passengers to wear masks in May. New York requires masks on the subway and buses, as well as on ferries and in taxis.

But enforcing rules has proved tricky. In Philadelphia, authorities had to dial back their policy after officers were shown on video dragging a man from a bus.

In the petition, Willis said the pandemic made it clear that the department had the power to issue a rule on an emergency basis, bypassing the need to take public comments, which might extend the process for months.

A rule is needed, he wrote, because the federal government could help with enforcement and because guidelines and policies adopted by private companies have proved insufficient.

If we had a functional federal government, led by a president who is actually interested in saving lives (as well as 'opening up' the country as soon as possible), a rule like this would have been issued 6 months ago. 

COVID19 Update - Day 140

US Tests: 52,985,577*

US Cases: 4,328,695*

US Deaths: 141,430*

Worldwide Cases: 16,662,462*

Worldwide Deaths: 658,861*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

Not content to simply ignore the virus that's killing thousands of Americans a day, the Trump family decided that they need to make it worse:

On Monday night, the president retweeted multiple accounts that posted a video falsely claiming that hydroxychloroquine cured Covid-19, including one tweet from his son, Donald Trump Jr. Many of those tweets were later removed, and Twitter suspended several of the users behind them, including Trump’s son, for 12 hours. But the video itself has continued to spread across social media platforms, raising fresh questions about how companies like Facebook and Twitter handle misinformation.

The video in question, which Trump Jr. called a “must watch,” features Houston doctor Stella Immanuel, who claimed that a combination of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and the antibiotic Zithromax was a “cure” for the coronavirus and that “you don’t need to wear a mask.” The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that hydroxychloroquine is “unlikely to produce an antiviral effect,” and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends wearing masks to stop the spread of the virus. The video of Immanuel quickly went viral, drawing millions of views on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in a matter of hours.

 

COVID19 Update - Day 139

US Tests: 51,491,494*

US Cases: 4,220,054*

US Deaths: 139,250*

Worldwide Cases: 16,407,310*

Worldwide Deaths: 652,459

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration.  And note that the numbers for the US have not been updated, due to an issue of some sort with The COVID Tracking Project.

If only there had been some way to see this coming.  After making the ill-considered decision to launch an abbreviated season just as infections started spiking again, the major-league baseball season is in jeopardy:

Less than one week into the 2020 Major League Baseball regular season, the league has been forced to postpone two games previously scheduled for Monday night because of a COVID-19 outbreak among the Miami Marlins. The outbreak has reportedly entailed more than a dozen positive tests. The Marlins will no longer host the Baltimore Orioles as planned, and will quarantine in place in Philadelphia until they receive more test results. The Marlins' weekend opponents, the Phillies, will not play the New York Yankees on Monday night, either.

The Marlins reportedly had nine players test positive, according to ESPN's Jeff Passan. That includes catcher Jorge Alfaro, outfielders Garrett Cooper and Harold Ramirez, and pitcher Jose Urena, who was scratched hours prior to his Sunday start due to a positive test. If the season continues and no other Marlins test positive, then the team will still have to replace essentially a third of its 30-player roster before playing another game.

Because there is no stated provision in the agreement between the league and the union on what would lead to the season being canceled or paused, that discretion belongs to commissioner Rob Manfred. What would it take before Manfred would consider pausing or scrapping the rest of the year?

To be clear, MLB has not yet cancelled their season.  But it seems like it's just a matter of time.

Which begs the question: What about sports which involve more physical contact than baseball?  Like football?

Or college football?

Or college, period?

Or in-person public school attendance? 

COVID19 Update - Day 138

US Tests: 51,491,494*

US Cases: 4,220,054*

US Deaths: 139,250*

Worldwide Cases: 16,196,314*

Worldwide Deaths: 647,846

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

If you remember nothing else that I write on this site, you need to remember that Republicans are awful, and should never have a place in government ever again:

Democrats put forward their stimulus plan earlier in the year, with the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passing the $3 trillion HEROES Act in May, but Republicans have struggled to answer it with legislation of their own, failing to share their plan as promised last week.

Passing the bill — which will involve striking a deal with Democrats — is a deeply urgent matter for Congress. Unemployment benefits are set to expire after July 31, a federal eviction moratorium imposed by the previous stimulus bill, the CARES Act, expired last week, and the Senate breaks for August recess on August 7.

But Mnuchin suggested Sunday that a compromise is imminent, saying on Fox News Sunday that “the [Trump] administration and the Senate Republicans are completely on the same page” now — a development that seemed far off as recently as last week, when the White House and Republican lawmakers fought fiercely over the provisions that should make it into the aid package.

Mnuchin said those provisions include something that has long been a GOP priority: Ending expanded insurance aid, which currently provides the unemployed with an additional $600 per week on top of their state unemployment payments, and which Democrats favor maintaining as a policy. In the Republican package, the program will be replaced by “something which pays people about 70 percent wage replacement, which I think is a very fair level,” Mnuchin said. He added that would amount to cutting the additional payment down to roughly $200 a week.

Mnuchin also said the GOP will be including liability protections for businesses, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has advocated for, meant to protect businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits that could come from customers and employees.

Let's review those past two paragraphs: Republicans believe it's necessary to impose a 66% reduction in insurance aid for the 40 million Americans out of work due to the virus, because they believe it's important that people have an incentive to work, rather than collect unemployment.

Meanwhile, they are completely unconcerned about the incentives created by giving businesses immunity for anything they might do which threatens the health of their employees and customers.

The Election is in Trouble --- You Can be a Hero!

I realize that I have a tendency to be a bit gloomy on this site.  But to be perfectly honest, I only blog when I feel the country is headed in the wrong direction (you'll note that I began this blog on March 13, 2016).

But this is a happy post!  Or at least, a hopeful one!

As you likely know if you've been paying any attention at all, the election on November 3 is likely to be a real mess (to put it politely).  We have no way of knowing how bad the pandemic will be by then, but given the complete vacuum of national leadership, it's fair to assume: REALLY bad.  Which means fewer people will be voting in person, which means you should really register to vote by mail and send in your vote as soon as possible.  Like, I mean, now.

Yes, now.  Go ahead and do it.  I'll wait.

Great!  There's one less thing to worry about.  So now that we've taken care of you, let's focus on getting other people to vote.

One thing that needs to happen is we need to get people to go vote.  And sure, people should be voting early by mail where they can, but there are a lot of people who don't have that option, and/or people who wait to the last minute, and/or people who don't ordinarily vote.  And we need to reach them.

And that's where Vote Forward comes in.

Vote Forward has done the work to identify people who are likely to vote for sane candidates (wink, wink), but who might not take the time to vote, and put their contact information in a database.  Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to 'adopt' 5 or 20 (or 100 or 200 or --- but no more than 20 at a time) of those likely non-voters, and send them a friendly letter in the US Post telling them why you vote in every election, and urging them to do the same.

One thing about Vote Forward is, it's technically non-partisan.  You are asked not to name any specific candidate or party in your letters --- I'm guessing due to regulations about in-kind contributions from the FEC.  So you talk about civic duty and what not (my line is "I won't let other people decide who's in charge of my state and my country"), but the key partisan edge is, as I said before, Vote Forward thinks they've identified the right people to send letters to.

And they claim that these letters improve turnout by 3% or more.  Which is actually pretty huge, if you think about it.

Of course, getting voters to the polls is only part of the equation.  We also need people working at the poll sites on election day.  And as you may be aware, poll workers tend to be retirees, who tend to be older and, crucially, at higher risk from the coronavirus.  So another thing you can do to help is to volunteer to be a poll worker (in some states, you'll even get paid!).  That will help insure that everyone who wants to cast a vote gets the opportunity to do so.

Only 100 days left!  Let's do this!

COVID19 Update - Day 137

US Tests: 50,635,683*

US Cases: 4,158341*

US Deaths: 138,692*

Worldwide Cases: 15,909,757*

Worldwide Deaths: 641,889*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

We can create the internet, and smart phones, because the science behind these things isn't subject to popular opinion.  No one is going to use their ignorance make a political issue out of internet protocols, for example.

I hope that someday, we can let knowledgeable experts and facts lead the way in public policy.  But clearly, today is not that day:

When the Covid-19 pandemic took hold in the United States this spring, companies jumped on the opportunity to advertise the ways they were supporting their customers and workers. The commercials became repetitive and indiscernible from one another, but corporate America’s message was clear: We’re all in this together.

Now companies have begun quietly rolling back many of the benefits, perks, and allowances they so loudly announced earlier this year. The state of the Covid-19 pandemic isn’t materially different than it was a few months ago — arguably, it’s now more widespread and worse. But corporations seem ready to move on.

“It’s just unclear that we could point to anything that’s different that would provide a reason to think that companies had strong moral reasons to be taking these steps in March and April, and that somehow those reasons are now gone,” said Brian Berkey, an assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

It turns out that “we’re all in this together” was a limited-time offer.

Meanwhile, Congress won't be passing another stimulus/relief bill any time soon, even though the current benefits package is exhausted, and a lot of people have rent and mortgage payments due this Friday.

We are nowhere close to the bottom of this thing.

COVID19 Update - Day 136

US Tests: 49,724,808*

US Cases: 4,092,928*

US Deaths: 137,655*

Worldwide Cases: 15,672,841*

Worldwide Deaths: 638,352*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

Trump and his administration are a failure.  But don't take my word for it:

More than 150 prominent US medical experts, scientists, teachers, nurses and others have signed a letter urging political leaders to shut down the country and start over to contain the surging coronavirus pandemic.

"The best thing for the nation is not to reopen as quickly as possible, it's to save as many lives as possible," they wrote in the document, which was sent Thursday to the Trump administration, leading members of Congress and state governors.

"Right now, we are on a path to lose more than 200,000 American lives by November 1st. Yet, in many states people can drink in bars, get a haircut, eat inside a restaurant, get a tattoo, get a massage, and do myriad other normal, pleasant, but non-essential activities."

Their recommendations come as the United States crossed the 4 million mark on Thursday, with at least 4,028,741 cases of coronavirus and 144,072 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University's count.

Covid-19 "will end up as a Top 10 leading cause of death" this year, statisticians from US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted in a Thursday email to CNN.

150 medical experts asking for a do-over is hardly a ringing endorsement of Trump's leadership. 

COVID19 Update - Day 135

US Tests: 48,794,970*

US Cases: 4,017,735*

US Deaths: 136,477*

Worldwide Cases: 15,356,780*

Worldwide Deaths: 626,357*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

Trump took a rare visit to reality today, in which he finally did one responsible thing and cancelled the Republican National Convention, which had been scheduled to occur in Jacksonville:

Trump's last-minute decision to cancel the event follows a mad scramble by the Republican Party over the last few months to try and hold a conventional party gathering despite the ongoing pandemic that has already killed more than 140,000 Americans.

Delegates to the convention will still meet in Charlotte, N.C., as planned, but Trump's keynote Jacksonville speech will no longer take place.

A Thursday Quinnipiac University opinion poll of Florida voters shows that 62% of respondents thought it would be unsafe to hold a convention in the state, compared with 34% who thought it could be managed safely.

Just on Monday, the sheriff of Duval County said that his officers would be unable to provide security for the convention based on poor planning for the event and a lack of funding.

In another stunning development at the same press conference, he appeared to present an accurate map of #COVID19 hotspots:

Trump: The northeast has become very clean. The country is in very good shape, other than if you look South and West pic.twitter.com/6hfaeRSCp6

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) July 23, 2020

On a personal note (yes, I still do those sometimes), I gave blood again yesterday.  The last time I gave blood was on April 1, and I recall at the time being surprised that NO ONE was wearing masks --- not even the staff.

Well, that's changed.

I gave a double-dose of red blood cells, which is why I haven't given for 16 weeks.  I also recall that, back in April, I just assumed that all of the changes due to #COVID19 would be done and over with by July 22.  I seriously underestimated just how badly Trump would mismanage the response, although to be fair, I don't think anyone could have foreseen the culture war aspect of whiny, entitled idiots refusing to wear masks.

In contrast, as I entered to make my donation yesterday, I was confident that we will still be wallowing in #COVID19 fallout when I give my next donation --- on November 11, after the election.

I wonder what our world will look like then?

COVID19 Update - Day 134

US Tests: 48,020,777*

US Cases: 3,946,708*

US Deaths: 135,438*

Worldwide Cases: 15,077,182*

Worldwide Deaths: 621,890*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

That's all I've got tonight.  I'm too focused on Trump's declaration of fascism to focus on the pandemic.

COVID19 Update - Day 133

US Tests: 47,224,382*

US Cases: 3,876,665*

US Deaths: 134,312*

Worldwide Cases: 14,893,706*

Worldwide Deaths: 615,364*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

New York magazine has a great article about the history of the Republican war on science, and how it led us to the world's most embarrassing response to the coronavirus:

Our former peer nations are now operating in a political context Americans would find unfathomable. Every other wealthy nation in the world has successfully beaten back the disease, at least significantly, and at least for now. New Zealand’s health minister was forced to resign after allowing two people who had tested positive for COVID-19 to attend a funeral. The Italian Parliament heckled Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte when he briefly attempted to remove his mask to deliver a speech. In May — around the time Trump cheered demonstrators into the streets to protest stay-at-home orders — Boris Johnson’s top adviser set off a massive national scandal, complete with multiple calls for his resignation, because he’d been caught driving to visit his parents during lockdown. If a Trump official had done the same, would any newspaper even have bothered to publish the story?

It is difficult for us Americans to imagine living in a country where violations so trivial (by our standards) provoke such an uproar. And if you’re tempted to see for yourself what it looks like, too bad — the E.U. has banned U.S. travelers for health reasons.

 

COVID19 Update - Day 132

US Tests: 46,462,864*

US Cases: 3,813,916*

US Deaths: 133,283*

Worldwide Cases: 14,655,405*

Worldwide Deaths: 609,198*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

If it seems that we're trapped in a downward spiral, perhaps it's because we are.  First, Trump sent armed goons in camo --- but no name badges or other identification --- into Portland, to divert attention from how badly he's mishandling the coronavirus response.

But now it seems that his brilliant plan to invoke an authoritarian crackdown on largely peaceful protestors has backfired (who could have predicted?), and so he's bringing back daily coronavirus briefings to divert attention from his creeping fascism:

During the first season of Trump’s briefings, the President often went on bizarre and unrelated tangents. He also often used the briefings to attack the assembled journalists in the room. At one briefing, Trump almost completely ignored the coronavirus threat and instead detailed his administration’s operations to go after MS-13. Cable news networks often cut away from the briefings altogether, in search of actual news on the pandemic.

Trump added Monday that the new briefings will be “a great way to get information out to the public” when it comes to the status of vaccines, therapeutics and “generally speaking where we are” on the COVID-19 outbreak.

The President reiterated the briefing will start “probably tomorrow” during the “good slot” of 5 p.m. and predicted that a lot of people will tune in. Trump said that White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany will continue her briefings separately, but that his briefings will discuss the coronavirus and “perhaps some other things.”

We're circling the drain. 

Judge in Epstein Case Targeted by Hitman

This almost certainly wasn't a random act of violence:

NORTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A gunman shot and killed the 20-year-old son of a federal judge in New Jersey and shot and injured her husband Sunday at the family home, the state's chief district judge said.

The shootings occurred at the North Brunswick home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, and killed her son, Daniel, Chief District Judge Freda Wolfson told The Associated Press. Her husband, defense lawyer Mark Anderl, was injured, Wolfson said.

The gunman posed as a delivery driver, according to a judiciary official who wasn't authorized to comment and spoke anonymously to the AP. They said Salas was in the basement at the time and wasn't injured and her husband is recovering from surgery.

The perpetrator, believed to be a lone gunman, was not in custody, the official said. The FBI tweeted Sunday night that it's looking for one suspect in the shootings.

Although the AP isn't saying it directly, this is almost certainly the reason for the shooting:

More recently, Salas has presided over an ongoing lawsuit brought by Deutsche Bank investors who claim the company made false and misleading statements about its anti-money laundering policies and failed to monitor "high-risk" customers including convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

And where Deutsche Bank and Epstein are involved, there's another name that inevitably appears:

Deutsche Bank has a long history of regulatory troubles.

In 2017, the bank was hit with $630 million in penalties from New York State over a $10 billion Russian money-laundering scandal in which it allegedly failed to deal with a stock-trading scheme that allowed clients in Russia to move massive amounts of money into offshore accounts.

The company also reached a $7.2 billion settlement in late 2016 with the US Justice Department over toxic mortgage assets, about a year after it agreed to pay $2.5 billion in penalties over interest rate manipulation.

Deutsche Bank also has a long and complicated relationship with President Donald Trump. Over the past two decades, Deutsche Bank has lent Trump more than $2 billion, making the bank the president's largest lender at the time of his election, according to The New York Times.

Trump has sued to block subpoenas compelling Deutsche Bank to turn over the president's financial records. The Supreme Court is debating Trump's ability to shield his documents, including tax records, from authorities.

Somehow, it seems that whenever law enforcement starts looking too closely at Epstein and Deutsche Bank, people die.

All just a coincidence, I'm sure. 

COVID19 Update - Day 131

US Tests: 45,734,327*

US Cases: 3,755,968*

US Deaths: 132,918*

Worldwide Cases: 14,448,751*

Worldwide Deaths: 605,050*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration.

There's no refuting the obvious fact that, of all countries in the industrialized world, only the United States has completely failed in responding to the coronavirus:

If you’re lucky enough to live in New Zealand, the coronavirus nightmare has been mostly over since June. After more than two weeks with no new cases, the government lifted almost all restrictions that month. The borders are still shut, but inside the country, normal life returned.

It’s coming back elsewhere too. Taiwan, where most days this month no new cases have been reported, just held the Taipei Film Festival, and a recent baseball game drew 10,000 spectators. Italy was once the epicenter of Europe’s outbreak and remains in a state of emergency, but with just a few hundred new cases a day in the whole country, bars are open and tourists have started returning, though of course Americans remain banned. According to The New York Times’s figures, there were 321 new cases in all of Canada last Friday.

And America? We had 68,241. As of last week, the worst per capita outbreak on the planet was in Arizona, followed by Florida. The world is closed to us; American passports were once coveted, but now only a few dozen nations will let us in. Lawrence O. Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown, told me he doesn’t expect American life to feel truly normal before summer 2022. Two years of our lives, stolen by Donald Trump. 

Fascism: Coming Soon to a City Near You

I just finished calling out yet another jaw-dropping policy fiasco which should result in the immediate resignation of our villain-in-chief.  And here's another:

CPB and ICE are among the most aggressively politicized branches of federal law enforcement and heavily supportive of the President’s policies. They are also accustomed to and indeed trained to deal with people with few civil or political rights and little ability to invoke the few rights they have. The specific officers deployed in support of FPS aren’t even regular CBP and ICE officers. They’re the immigration equivalent of SWAT teams. The acting head of CBP openly says they won’t wear name tags or numbers because this would allegedly put them and their families at risk from Antifa. In other words, they’re explicitly invoking the Antifa hysteria one sees on Fox News and right wing media to justify what are commonly understood as secret police tactics.

They are the perfect vehicle for what the White House and these acting appointees at DHS want to do which is to seeks out confrontations which are consistent with President Trump’s campaign agenda. In their current form they really do amount to a federal political police force acting at the direction of the political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security, none of whom are even confirmed by the Senate to be acting in their current positions.

Acting DHS secretary Ken Cuccinelli made it quite clear on NPR that there are plans to take this federal occupation of cities by CBP and ICE nationwide.

Federal agents, occupying U.S. cities without the explicit invitation or even consent of local or state elected officials, detaining citizens without due process or accountability.  That's what the Trump administration has become.

It's almost as if Trump is testing his supporters, to see if they really WILL continue to support him no matter what.  He sure as hell isn't trying to persuade undecideds to give him another term. 

COVID19 Update - Day 130

US Tests: 44,965,504*

US Cases: 3,692,061*

US Deaths: 132,395*

Worldwide Cases: 14,246,121*

Worldwide Deaths: 601,512*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

Trump is serious about cutting back on our testing for the virus (emphasis mine):

Negotiations are expected to kick off with increased urgency because of the rapid growth of cases — and steady uptick in deaths — in the United States. The number of cases began falling in April but accelerated sharply after Memorial Day, shattering records in the past two weeks.

In late May, there were fewer than 20,000 new cases of coronavirus reported each day. On Friday, there were more than 76,000 new cases reported.

The two political parties are far apart on a number of contentious issues, such as unemployment insurance, but the conflict between Trump administration officials and Senate Republicans on money for testing and other priorities is creating a major complication even before bipartisan negotiations get under way. Some lawmakers are trying to reach a deal quickly, as enhanced unemployment benefits for millions of Americans are set to expire in less than two weeks.

One person involved in the talks said Senate Republicans were seeking to allocate $25 billion for states to conduct testing and contact tracing, but that certain administration officials want to zero out the testing and tracing money entirely. Some White House officials believe they have already approved billions of dollars in assistance for testing and that some of that money remains unspent.

Senate Republicans deserve a nominal amount of credit, in that they're not mindlessly supporting Trump's insanity for a change.  However, it is nothing short of criminal to want to eliminate funding for testing and tracing AS INFECTIONS ARE SPIKING.

For this and many other reasons, Americans of all political leanings should be in the streets demanding the resignation of this corrupt cancer.

 

 

Jack-Booted Thugs in Portland

This should be a much, much bigger story:

Federal agents dressed in camouflage and tactical gear have taken to the streets of Portland, unleashing tear gas, bloodying protesters and pulling some people into unmarked vans in what Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon has called “a blatant abuse of power.”

The extraordinary use of federal force in recent days, billed as an attempt to tamp down persistent unrest and protect government property, has infuriated local leaders who say the agents have stoked tensions.

“This is an attack on our democracy,” Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland said.

The strife in Portland, which has had 50 consecutive days of protests, reflects the growing fault lines in law enforcement as President Trump threatens an assertive federal role in how cities manage a wave of national unrest after George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis police.

One Portland demonstrator, Mark Pettibone, 29, said he had been part of the protests before four people in camouflage jumped out of an unmarked van around 2 a.m. Wednesday. They had no obvious markings or identification, he said, and he had no idea who they were.

“One of the officers said, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ and just grabbed me and threw me into the van,” Mr. Pettibone said. “Another officer pulled my beanie down so I couldn’t see.”

Mr. Pettibone said that he was terrified — protesters in the city have in the past clashed with far-right militia groups also wearing camouflage and tactical gear — and that at no point was he told why he was arrested or detained, or what agency the officers were with. He said he was held for about two hours before being released.

It's worth emphasizing that every Oregon elected official --- Governor Kate Brown, Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkeley, and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, all want these uninvited federal thugs to pack up and go home.  This makes these federal officials an illegal occupying force, and the clearest sign to date of the #TrumpDeathCult fascist tendencies.

This must be stopped, and it must be stopped now.  Otherwise, by election day, there may be federal 'law enforcement' stationed outside polling places in most Democratic-leaning precincts.

Contact your elected officials and demand an investigation.

 

COVID19 Update - Day 129

US Tests: 44,203,733*

US Cases: 3,626,881*

US Deaths: 131,523*

Worldwide Cases: 14,060,402*

Worldwide Deaths: 601,820*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

The Trump regime's push to reopen public schools is, like every other policy they pursue, a clusterfuck:

Now, an effort that many inside the White House expected would prove widely popular has come to typify Trump's halting efforts to confront the pandemic. He has undercut his administration's public health experts in the name of returning the country to normal. Instead of providing clear instructions or mandates for how to combat the virus, Trump is issuing sweeping directives without saying how they should be achieved. And, through Trump's own making, the issue has become a political litmus test alongside mask-wearing and public gatherings.

Additional guidance promised by the administration has been delayed. Internally, aides are scrambling to compile additional research to convince Americans that keeping kids at home poses more danger than sending them into classrooms after encountering unexpected resistance to their plans.

This week, White House officials and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have sparred over the rollout of additional guidance meant to encourage school reopenings, creating another point of friction in a relationship that has remained tense throughout the pandemic response.

In case it's not clear by now, Trump doesn't care about your children.  He doesn't care about you or your family.  He doesn't really care about fighting the virus, except to the extent that the rising body count is making him look bad.  So he's staging a big push to get children back in schools because that will allow their parents to go back to work, and he's just stupid enough to think that will get the economy going again.

It appears that the millions of additional #COVID19 cases and hundreds of thousands of additional deaths which will result don't enter into his thinking at all.

Remember that back in February, we had the chance to rid America of this cancer if only 20 Republican Senators had been willing to fulfill their Constitutional oath.  But only one was.  Remember that in November, too. 

COVID19 Update - Day 128

US Tests: 43,351,945*

US Cases: 3,549,648*

US Deaths: 130,572*

Worldwide Cases: 13,765,713*

Worldwide Deaths: 589,192*

* Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

Here's a daily reminder of what a failure this administration is:

Note that cases are shooting up in the U.S. faster than Trump's favorite scapegoat, Mexico.  And even cases in Brazil are leveling off.  And you can't really even see Norway, New Zealand, South Korea, Italy and Germany, because those countries have essentially defeated the virus.

Recall that three months ago, Italy and Germany were two of the world virus hot spots.  Why do you suppose those countries have beaten #COVID19, while the number of cases in the U.S. is spiking?

Two reasons: Trump and the GOP.

COVID19 Update - Day 127

US Tests: 42,521,027*

US Cases: 3,478,419*

US Deaths: 129,595*

Worldwide Cases: 13,512,693*

Worldwide Deaths: 583,359*

* Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

No one should be surprised by today's news.  If anything, we should be surprised that it didn't happen sooner:

The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.

. . .

Officials say the change will streamline data gathering and assist the White House coronavirus task force in allocating scarce supplies like personal protective gear and remdesivir, the first drug shown to be effective against the virus. But the Health and Human Services database that will receive new information is not open to the public, which could affect the work of scores of researchers, modelers and health officials who rely on C.D.C. data to make projections and crucial decisions.

“Historically, C.D.C. has been the place where public health data has been sent, and this raises questions about not just access for researchers but access for reporters, access for the public to try to better understand what is happening with the outbreak," said Jen Kates, the director of global health and H.I.V. policy with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

“How will the data be protected?” she asked. “Will there be transparency, will there be access, and what is the role of the C.D.C. in understanding the data?”

Anyone who thinks HHS won't politicize the data to minimize the severity of the pandemic hasn't been paying attention to the way Trump has politicized the Justice Department.

And this is why I must now put asterisks by the statistics I provide, because whatever numbers are published are guaranteed to be undercounts.

It is, however, consistent with Republican handling of the pandemic.  Their only concern is to cover up their malfeasance; rather than to do the work to actually resolve the crisis.  And this is one of the reasons why the modern Republican party is a death cult.

For another example, look to Georgia:

Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday extended Georgia’s coronavirus restrictions while explicitly banning cities and counties from adopting rules requiring masks or other face coverings, a measure that could bolster the state’s case in a possible legal battle.

Kemp’s executive order — which was set to expire Wednesday evening — still encourages, rather than requires, Georgians to wear masks in public. The governor has called such a requirement “a bridge too far,” and his office has said local mandates are unenforceable.

The governor’s coronavirus orders have for months banned local governments from taking more restrictive or lenient steps than the state. But the new set of rules he signed on Wednesday specified for the first time that cities and counties can’t require the use of masks or other face coverings.

That could improve the state’s standing in a courtroom fight against a string of cities that have defied Kemp’s emergency order by requiring masks. Savannah led that charge earlier this month, and since then other cities including Atlanta, Athens and Augusta have followed suit.

Is Kemp worried about saving the lives of Georgians?  To minimize the spread of the virus?  No, he's interested in winning a court battle (and secondarily, I'm guessing, sucking up to Jim Jones Trump). 

And Kemp should really know better.  All he needs to do is look one state to the south for an all-too-graphic example of how bad things can get under leadership like his:

Florida, where the Republican convention is scheduled to be held next month, passed a dismal benchmark Wednesday with more than 300,000 cases of COVID-19 reported since the start of the pandemic.

More than 77,000 cases were logged just in the last seven days, bringing the total number in the state to 301,629, according to the Florida Department of Health.

There were also 112 more deaths, putting the state on track to hit 5,000 COVID-19 fatalities, the NBC News numbers showed.

Tuesday was the second deadliest day of the pandemic in Florida, with 133 fatalities — the most since July 1 when 145 were recorded, the new figures show.

Finding a bed for all those sick people became increasingly harder with the Agency for Health Care Administration reporting that 54 hospitals in the state now have zero available beds in their intensive care units and another 40 hospitals have less than 10 percent bed availability in their ICUs.

Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceberg.  And iceberg that Trump and his lackeys are doing their best to hide. 

 

 

 

 

 

COVID19 Update - Day 126

US Tests: 41,764,557

US Cases: 3,413,313

US Deaths: 128,740

Worldwide Cases: 13,273,537

Worldwide Deaths: 577,843

This, sadly, was entirely too predictable:

Local news reports from Texas and Arizona say that officials and hospital chains have begun in recent weeks to order extra, mobile morgues. The reasons differ, but they either come as a response to death rates starting to overwhelm storage capacity for the dead or as local officials anticipate and prepare for the same.

FEMA told TPM that it is sending 14 “mortuary support units” to Texas in response to a July 11 request from the state’s department of emergency management. The units, a FEMA spokesperson said, “are in transit and should arrive at the state by early next week.”

Local officials in Texas have been agitating for the mobile morgues as death counts rise.

“I am now having to order additional body bags and morgue trailers. People have to understand how real it is,” Barbara Canales, Judge of Texas’s Nueces County, told a Corpus Christi TV station last week.

The staggering scope of how badly the pandemic response is being managed, and the magnitude of the body count from easily-preventable deaths will haunt this country for generations.

As it should.

HOWEVER!  There is also some good news today!

A COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Cambridge biotech Moderna in a collaboration with the National Institutes of Health spurred immune responses in healthy subjects who received it, although it caused mild side effects in many of them, according to the first published data about the small, early-stage clinical trial.

The vaccine, which was the first of at least 21 to enter clinical trials, produced antibodies in all 45 patients who received two shots 28 days apart in March, said the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Three groups of 15 volunteers received varying dosages.

“These safety and immunogenicity findings support advancement of the mRNA-1273 vaccine to later-stage clinical trials,” the article said, using the identification number for the experimental vaccine.

The vaccine was developed by Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which ran the Phase 1 trial. Moderna reported some of the results in mid-May, and the vaccine is in mid-stage trials, with a final stage scheduled to start on 30,000 adults July 27.

“No matter how you slice this, this is good news,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US government’s leading infectious disease specialist, told the Associated Press.

I understand that this is a process, and that there's still a long way to go before any vaccine might be ready to administer to the general public.  Nevertheless, some progress is better than no progress!

COVID19 Update - Day 125

US Tests: 41,002,876

US Cases: 3,350,326

US Deaths: 128,004

Worldwide Cases: 13,070,590

Worldwide Deaths: 572,428

I got nuthin'.

COVID19 Update - Day 124

US Tests: 40,282,536
US Cases: 3,292,329
US Deaths: 127,677
Worldwide Cases: 12,872,434
Worldwide Deaths: 568,296

It's not clear what the point of this is.  Last week, Trump contradicted the CDC.  And now he's openly trashing Anthony Fauci:

In a statement Saturday, a White House official told CNN that "several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things." The official went on to provide a lengthy list of examples, citing Fauci's comments early in the pandemic and linking to past interviews.

These bullet points, which resembled opposition research on a political opponent, included Fauci downplaying the virus early on and a quote from March when Fauci said, "People should not be walking around with masks," among other comments.

The move by the White House comes as President Donald Trump and Fauci are not speaking. The tension between the two men has grown publicly as the two have responded to one another through interviews and statements.

In a recent series of newspaper and radio interviews, Fauci -- who has worked under six US presidents from both parties -- has at times openly disagreed with Trump.

"As a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don't think you can say we're doing great. I mean, we're just not," Fauci said in one interview. In another, Fauci responded to the President's claim that "99%" of coronavirus cases in the United States were "totally harmless," saying he didn't know where the President got the number, and suggesting Trump's interpretation was "obviously not the case."

Trump has taken to publicly criticizing Fauci on national television.

It's beyond belief that the Trump White House, of all institutions, is concerned about how frequently Fauci is wrong about things, especially when Trump has mostly been too bored to address the virus, period, much less make incorrect statements about it.

This does nothing to help Trump politically, given that 72% of the public approve of Fauci's response to the virus, compared to 44% for Trump.  And to the extent that he succeeds in undermining confidence in Fauci, he is yet again deepening the impact of the virus.

COVID19 Update - Day 123

US Tests: 39,553,395

US Cases: 3,230,991

US Deaths: 127,201

Worldwide Cases: 12,671,592

Worldwide Deaths: 563,841

Instead of discussing either Trump's failure to manage the pandemic, his corruption in making money off the pandemic (for himself, his family, and his cronies), or both, today I will instead pass along a story from a friend of mine, a nurse.

A coworker of mine told me about a friend of hers who is an ER nurse down in Eugene. They were treating a young man for Covid symptoms and he insisted on three tests because he wasn’t believing the results. After the third positive rapid test, he yelled that Covid was fake news and that they were just trying to hurt him, and left against medical advice. He’s now out in the general population, spreading his fake germs.

When I read this, my first thought was that this wouldn't have happened if Hillary Clinton were president, since she would exercise appropriate judgment, and wouldn't encourage people to think of the virus as a hoax, or 'fake news'.

But then I realized that even if he weren't president, Trump would still be tweeting out idiotic stuff, and so there would still be idiots like this man.  So this would still have happened.

And then I realized that no, it wouldn't, either.  Because Hillary would also have demonstrated leadership, and by this stage in the process, we would be reopening SAFELY (instead of reopening and hoping for a miracle), and so odds are this guy never would have been sick in the first place.

Just as reminder --- most western countries are reopening now, and doing so safely, because they did the work to tame the virus in the first place.  Something the United States has yet to do --- and sadly, probably never will.

Interactive graphing tool available at Our World in Data

COVID19 Update - Day 122

US Tests: 38,856,341

US Cases: 3,167,984

US Deaths: 126,444

Worldwide Cases: 12,466,337

Worldwide Deaths: 559,622

As the number of new cases in the U.S. spikes, people are once again focusing on the relatively low death rate --- less than 1% of those infected.  However, Josh Marshall raises a good point --- even if the virus doesn't kill you, it can still do a lot of damage:

I got focused on this today when I head from longtime reader TPM Reader JB, who is a clinician at an academic medical center. He forward me this JAMA study in Italy. You can see the details here. But the gist is that talked to 143 patients who had been hospitalized for and survived COVID. Only 5% had been on a ventilator. So this wasn’t just people who had been on the edge of death. The mean hospitalization had been about two weeks. They were interviewed 60 days after the onset of symptoms. Only 12.6% reported being symptom free. A worsened quality of life was observed among 44.1% of the group. The most common symptoms were fatigue and labored breathing. There are many instances of people with what appears to be permanent organ damage from COVID, persistent neurological or psychiatric impacts. One day you’re healthy and the next you have a permanently compromised heart or kidneys. It’s not great.

If you’re staying up on COVID news you probably don’t need me to tell you this. Certainly you don’t if you have loved ones who are affected. But even at roughly 130,000 Americans having died of this disease much of the public discussion is significantly understating the full impact of the disease either nationally or individually.

The bottom line here is clear: This virus isn't something to screw around with.

WEAR A MASK!!! 

COVID19 Update - Day 121

US Tests: 38,032,966

US Cases: 3,101,339

US Deaths: 125,590

Worldwide Cases: 12,232,745

Worldwide Deaths: 554,304

It looks like public schools will reopen in the fall.  And the science suggests that the risk to schoolage children is minimal:

“The data that is clear is that children do not get serious consequences of infection compared to adults,” Fauci said. “That’s a fact. Everything else is less secure. It is more anecdotal.”

The anecdotal evidence, he said, is that children do not transmit the coronavirus to adults as readily as adults infect one another. But, he acknowledged, “the definitive study has not been done.”

The pandemic has shown a clear pattern of discriminating by age. The CDC’s provisional death toll from covid-19 stood at 112,000 on Wednesday — a figure officials acknowledge is likely an undercount — and of those deaths, 29 were among children under the age of 15. That compares with 37,247 deaths among people 85 and older. (A Post analysis shows more than 130,000 people in the United States have died from covid-19.)

Though epidemiologists agree that children generally dodge the worst of covid-19, the emergence of a rare but dangerous “multisystem inflammatory syndrome” in children has been linked to the virus. The syndrome, which can manifest in a variety of early symptoms such as fever and rash, shares some characteristics with Kawasaki disease, a rare illness that usually affects children under 5.

The bigger concern is whether schoolchildren will act as asymptomatic carriers to spread the disease to faculty, staff and parents.

Sadly, this is an extremely complex issue, with no clear right answer.  But since it appears that it's going to happen, it needs to be done with a lot of advance planning, and a lot of money. 

COVID19 Update - Day 120

US Tests: 37,532,612

US Cases: 3,042,503

US Deaths: 124,723

Worldwide Cases: 12,012,125

Worldwide Deaths: 548,896

Will the public schools open this fall or not?  It depends on whom you ask:

After Trump voiced displeasure at the CDC's handling of the issue, the agency's director said his recommendations shouldn't be used as an excuse for not returning children to classrooms.

Instead, Dr. Robert Redfield and other members of the White House coronavirus task force said every effort must be made to bring students back to schools, suggesting doing otherwise would harm their health and development.

Trump has pushed to reopen schools as a way to allow parents to return to normal work, a step that could further fuel an economic resurgence.

On Wednesday morning, he also threatened he "may cut off funding" to schools that do not reopen, though the bulk of public school funding comes from state and local governments.

"I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!" the President tweeted.

Oh gee, what a dilemma.  Do I trust the CDC, or do I trust the willfully ignorant and historically corrupt president who's always wrong about everything?

Also, as an unsurprising coda to more recent Trump idiocy, we have learned that a spike in new infections in Tulsa, OK is likely linked to the rally Trump held there 3 weeks ago, where social distancing was actively discouraged and few people wore masks: 

Tulsa County reported 261 confirmed new cases on Monday, a one-day record high, and another 206 cases on Tuesday.

Although the health department’s policy is to not publicly identify individual settings where people may have contracted the virus, Dart said those large gatherings “more than likely” contributed to the spike.

“In the past few days, we’ve seen almost 500 new cases, and we had several large events just over two weeks ago, so I guess we just connect the dots,” Dart said.

Death cult. 

 

COVID19 Update - Day 119

US Tests: 36,878,106

US Cases: 2,980,306

US Deaths: 123,834

Worldwide Cases: 11,798,678

Worldwide Deaths: 543,535

It's late, and that's all for tonight, folks.

COVID19 Update - Day 118

US Tests: 36,032,329

US Cases: 2,928,418

US Deaths: 122,915

Worldwide Cases: 11,589,382

Worldwide Deaths: 537,419

If it's a Monday, it must be time for another story about the Trump administration using the pandemic to hand out money to the Trump family and its most obsequious sycophants:

Businesses tied to President Donald Trump’s family and associates stand to receive as much as $21 million in government loans designed to shore up payroll expenses for companies struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to federal data released Monday.

A hydroponic lettuce farm backed by Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr., applied for at least $150,000 in Small Business Administration funding. Albert Hazzouri, a dentist frequently spotted at Mar-a-Lago, asked for a similar amount. A hospital run by Maria Ryan, a close associate of Trump lawyer and former mayor Rudy Giuliani, requested more than $5 million. Several companies connected to the president’s son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner, could get upward of $6 million.

What's stunning isn't that Trump's corruption has infected the pandemic response (see what I did there?) --- it's the fact that this story would be a huge scandal in any other administration, but for Trump it's such small potatoes that it will be forgotten in less than 48 hours.

And now for something completely different.  Last week, I drove my kids (ages 17 and 19) from Minnesota to North Carolina to (a) Visit my parents at their retirement community, and (b) Pick up my mom's car and drive it back to Minnesota for my daughter to use.

As you might imagine, it was both a joy and thrill.  But the part of the story relevant to our purpose here has to do with the screening process we needed to undergo every time we entered the retirement community property.

The scene: A guard shack at the entrance of a senior living community on a hot, humid July day during the summer of The Virus.  A car drives up containing three weary travelers, Dave, Nik and Gwen, a father and his two somewhat-adult children.  They are coming to the senior living community to visit Dave's parents, Don and Elaine.  A battery of nurses emerge from the guard shack to screen the weary travelers, so as to protect the citizens of the senior living community from The Virus.

Nurse A (to Dave): Name?

Dave: David Bailey.  Here to see Don and Elaine Bailey.

Nurse A: Daily?

Dave: No, Bailey.

Nurse A: And who are you here to see?

Dave: . . . Don and Elaine Bailey, my parents.

Nurse B: I'll take their temperatures. (Proceeds to go from Dave to Nik to Gwen, taking their temperatures by aiming a Star Trek-style device at their foreheads)

Nurse C (to Nik): Name?

Nik: Nik Bailey

Nurse C: Billy?

Nik: No, Nik Bailey

Nurse C: And who are you here to see?

Nik: . . .

Dave: . . .

Gwen: . . .

Nik: Don and Elaine Bailey

Nurse B (to Nurse A): All of their temps are elevated.

Nurse A: Okay.  Use this other thermometer.

Nurse B puts down the first Star-Trek style device, picks up a different one, and proceeds to once again go from Dave to Nik to Gwen, taking their temperatures)

Nurse C (to Gwen): Name?

Gwen: Gwen Bailey

Nurse C: And who are you here to see?

Scene.

COVID19 Update - Day 117

US Tests: 35,512,916

US Cases: 2,881,016

US Deaths: 122,673

Worldwide Cases: 11,409,805

Worldwide Deaths: 533,684

Something about my day today reminds me of the 'greatest generation', and the sacrifices they made to help use win WWII:

My mom and her cousin, Rose, (no kidding) were riveters in a wartime assembly plant. They wrote letters to boys in the army and dealt with food rationing, curfews and other such realities of a world at war.

Like us, the found solace in entertainment, at the movies, with newsreels, cartoons, comedy shorts, B-movies and then a feature film … the Netflix of their day.

Americans turned in old tires when the government collected rubber to make wheels for military vehicles. Scrap drives were a constant feature of daily living.

Gasoline was rationed, curfews were obeyed, especially in coastal towns amid fears the Germans or Japanese could attack those cities.

Even the lights were turned off at night to make potential targets harder to see.

The depression and war lasted for a total of 16 years. Sixteen years of economic hardship, shared sacrifice and national unity.

I'd like to emphasize that final sentence: Sixteen years of economic hardship, shared sacrifice and national unity. 

Actually, for the life of me, I can't figure out why this story popped into my head today.  Unless maybe --- no, yeah, this is what made me think of it:

This woman in Scottsdale, Arizona was super upset with Target for selling face masks. So upset in fact, that she attacked their display....pic.twitter.com/ye9LiDz0JH

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) July 5, 2020

Yeah.  These whackadoos in the #CultOfTrump are so weak, soft and entitled that not only can they not bear to wear a mask in a public store for TWENTY MINUTES, they believe that even being asked to wear a mask is comparable to the holocaust.

They are unhinged, they are dangerous, and they feed on the demented ramblings of their Dear Leader.

Trump has to go.  And the cowardly, craven Republicans who refuse to speak out against him need to go as well.

Trump Goes Full-Bore White Supremacist at Mount Rushmore

This is just jaw-dropping:

Trump put his strategy to resuscitate his troubled reelection campaign by galvanizing white supporters on display Friday night under the chiseled granite gaze of four past presidents memorialized in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He celebrated Independence Day with a dystopian speech in which he excoriated racial justice protesters as “evil” representatives of a “new far-left fascism” whose ultimate goal is “the end of America.”

“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children,” Trump said to boos from a packed crowd of supporters. “Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities.”

The president literally went to one of America's most iconic national monument's on the Fourth of July to preach white supremacy to his followers.

Now, it's understandable that he wants to rally his base, since he has literally no policy accomplishments to point to, alongside a devastating list of failures.  Off the top of my head, there's family separation, failure to build his racist and counterproductive wall, not one but two failed racist Muslim bans, counterproductive tariffs, a nuclear Iran, a nuclear North Korea, a pandemic out of control, impeachment, almost-certain collusion with a despot who puts bounties on American troops, and corruption as far as the eye can see.  With that kind of track record, he's right to conclude that even a judiciary packed with his death cult acolytes, a corrupt Attorney General and widespread voter suppression won't help him win re-election.

With all of this working against him, it's understandable that he wants to give his followers what they want.  Unfortunately, what they want is not only on the wrong side of history, but on the wrong side of popular opinion as well.

And let's never forget, Trump isn't the problem, he's the symptom:

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans fret — mostly privately, to avoid his wrath — that Trump’s fixation on racial and other cultural issues leaves their party running against the currents of change. Coupled with the coronavirus pandemic and related economic crisis, these Republicans fear he is not only seriously impairing his reelection chances but also jeopardizing the GOP Senate majority and its strength in the House.

“The Senate incumbent candidates are not taking the bait and are staying as far away from this as they can,” said Scott Reed, a veteran Republican operative and chief strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has invested heavily in keeping GOP control of the Senate. “The problem is this is no longer just Trump’s Twitter feed. It’s expanded to the podium, and that makes it more and more difficult for these campaigns.”

Oh the poor dears, fretting privately.  If Republicans actually want their party to stand for something other than open, malignant white supremacy, these tender blossoms need to summon the courage to at least SAY SO, if not denounce Trump outright.  But clearly, their hope is that if they remain silent, voters won't see them as the enablers they are.

They don't care about what's right.  They only care about winning re-election.

But we're smarter than that, aren't we?  We all know that to remain silent in the face of oppression is to side with the oppressor, don't we?

We're not going to let them continue to sit in Congress, and sanctimoniously lecture us about 'character', are we? 

COVID19 Update - Day 116

US Tests: 34,858,427

US Cases: 2,838,465

US Deaths: 122,464

Worldwide Cases: 11,199,747

Worldwide Deaths: 530,110

I'm ceding the coronavirus update tonight to another post, which is honestly much more important.

COVID19 Update - Day 115

US Tests: 34,213,497

US Cases: 2,786,059

US Deaths: 122,158

Worldwide Cases: 11,045,713

Worldwide Deaths: 524,577

And that's all tonight, folks.  It's been a busy day (busy week, busy month ---)

COVID19 Update - Day 114

US Tests: 33,462,181

US Cases: 2,727,628

US Deaths: 121,487

Worldwide Cases: 10,815,117

Worldwide Deaths: 519,575

Better late than never?  An acolyte in the #TrumpDeathCult finally woke up to reality:

In a major reversal, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued a statewide rule Thursday requiring masks to be worn in public, but only after the dramatic COVID-19 spike in the state.

Abbott has long resisted taking the kinds of strong public health measures that other COVID-ravaged states have implemented to combat the virus. While he hasn’t been as extreme as some other Republican governors in dismissing the threat of COVID-19 and resisting mitigation strategies, Abbott has until the last few days toed the GOP line that reopening the economy is the top priority.

Then the case counts in Texas began to skyrocket, especially since the Memorial Day reopening.

How many lives could have been saved if Abbott considered science when making his decisions, or if he didn't feel duty-bound to model his policy in the mold of a historically corrupt and incompetent president?  At a minimum, Abbott could have given cities the ability to implement their own mandates, but until today, he prohibited it.

As always, the bottom line is that Republican governance means corruption, incompetence and death.

On a personal note (I haven't had one of those in a while, have I?), I'm currently writing this from North Carolina, which isn't exactly a hotspot for the virus, but apparently new cases are up 10% over last week.  I'm here with my kids, visiting my parents --- partly because my parents haven't seen their grandkids in roughly a year, and partly to pick up my mom's car and drive it back to Minnesota for my daughter to use.  I think if only one of those two facts were true, we would have stayed put.

But traveling during a pandemic is certainly an adventure.  All of our meals so far have been takeout, except for tonight when we dined outdoors.  And my kids and I are all wearing masks whenever we go indoors somewhere; I brought laundry detergent and hand-wash them every night.

My parents live in a retirement community, and they are rightly screening and limiting guests onto the property.  We did go for a brief visit tonight (we arrived 20 minutes before visiting hours ended), and it was an experience.  At the gate, we had to state our names and answer a bunch of health questions.  I thought it was particularly interesting that they asked whether we had been to New York (or on a cruise), or had a guest in our home who had been to New York (or on a cruise).

I understand why they're asking the question, since New York was the first big hot spot in the country.  But it's currently one of only 10 states where the number of new cases is actually dropping (those states, in order of largest percent decrease to smallest, are Rhode Island (-25), Arkansas (-10), Mississippi (-8), New York (-6), New Hampshire (-6), Michigan (-5), Maryland (-5), Virginia (-3), Kentucky (-2), Massachusetts (-2)).

At this point, I'm actually more concerned that the kids will get in a wreck driving home than I am about the virus.

COVID19 Update - Day 113

US Tests: 32,827,359

US Cases: 2,674,813

US Deaths: 121,023

Worldwide Cases: 10,653,987

Worldwide Deaths: 514,697

Good God.  I shouldn't be surprised by now, but it's simply stunning how Trump continues to do these things, and his supporters continue not to care:

It was just hours before President Trump was set to take the stage for his rally in Tulsa last month when the news broke: Six staff at the site had just tested positive for the coronavirus.

The president, who was en route from Washington, was livid that the news was public, according to people familiar with his reaction. In the tent outside the BOK Center, where campaign staff were being tested before the event, the release of the information caused a scramble.

Health-care workers were quizzed about whether they had leaked the information about the positive cases to the news media — and then were given a different list of people to test, according to two people with direct knowledge of the events who, like others in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.

So --- a half-dozen Trump staffers test positive for coronavirus, and the campaign's first impulse is to cover it up.  And then they continue to hold the rally anyway --- in an indoor space, without mandating the use of masks, and actively blocking efforts to promote social distancing.

This is how Trump treats his own staff and supporters.  His own self-aggrandizement is more important to him than their lives, and the lives of their families.

And they support him anyway.  Death cult.